Teach English in Faguan Zhen - Shangluo Shi

Learning any language takes a lot of courage and patience. Some learners find it easy, others find it difficult and face problems. If we look at some European countries, it is easier for them to learn English, but if we think of Asian learners, the picture will be totally different. Their languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are totally different from the other languages of the Romance origin. They do not have letters, they have characters, their languages are tonal, etc. Having worked with the students from India, Vietnam, China, Thailand, I would like to describe problems learners from China have when learning English. To begin with, learners from China can be very shy at their first lesson, especially when we talk about beginners. Many students are afraid of speaking because their system of education is based more on learning grammar, reading and writing. They can write well, but they cannot speak freely. You are lucky, if you have a teacher assistant for beginner students. Quite often, it is difficult to encourage them to speak. That is why you need to have enough warmers and games to make them speak and think using only English. This point leads us to the second problem Chinese learners can have. They use their native language in the classroom too much. It can be confusing for a teacher. Students cannot express what they want to say because of lack of knowledge of English language. For this reason, it is necessary to make sure that instructions are clear and simple. Even though I could understand simple Chinese, I did not respond. I answered questions only asked in English. Students want English to be translated into Chinese to understand something better, but it is not a good idea. What is more, there is another problem which is listening. It was not enough for them to listen to the text for one time, sometimes, the second time was not helpful at all. However, I encouraged them to try answering my question after the first or the second listening. Also, some students finish the task too fast, other students never have enough time to finish everything on time. That is why some extra activities were needed for some students who finish early. Furthermore, there are some reluctant students who were sent to learn English by their parents. They are not willing to participate or talk. Every student needs an individual approach. If we talk about public schools, one of the major problems is large classes. In a Chinese public-school class there are more than 30-40 students. It caused another problem – lack of time and no possibility to work with each student individually. It can be really challenging to teach a large class. Many students want to talk in such kind of classes, however, there is not enough time to listen to everyone. They may get upset for this reason. They got used to such an environment, however, it would be much better to split large classes into smaller groups of students. Finally, Chinese students are less creative. They can learn grammatical structures, new words, easily, but it can be difficult for them to write creative essays, make up some stories. For example, when you ask them to imagine something, it can be problematic. However, they are trying their best. To sum up, problems for learners in China are pretty much alike to learners from other countries. The ones mentioned here are from my experience working with Chinese students of different ages. However, it is difficult to say about the whole nation in general, every student and every class is unique with their problems which have to be solved individually.